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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — We’ve been hearing it a lot this week, and with good reason: the term “cold snap.”

Walk outside without a thick coat and you’ll feel the bone-chilling cold.

But the term “cold snap” has different meanings in various parts of the country. If you live in Miami — or even Minnesota — your idea of a cold snap could be different than we have living here.

“In different parts of the country a cold snap may have a little bit different meaning, just based on the local climate,” National Weather Service meteorologist Valerie Meola tells KYW Newsradio.

“Unlike a heat wave, where we do have a definite number that we follow — a heat wave is 90 degrees or more for three days — a cold snap does not have a temperature associated with it,” she explains. “It’s just an extended period of that cold and dry weather.”

Meola says the normal temperature this time of year is 40 degrees: “So it is actually quite a bit colder than normal.”

In addition, she warns, dew points are currently very low in the Philadelphia area, which causes your skin to dry out faster.